I know that the 'journey' is an integal part of a travelers experience but in reflection it's quiet scary how many of my blogs have related incidents on transport, here's another.....

The Guatemalan bus system is run by a bloody accountant! We left the hotel in Flores at around 8am this morning in a cab to cross the causeway to San Elena where we were to get a local bus to Rio Dulce, a four hour trip to the Caribbean coast of Guatemala The bus tickets said 8:30 but when we arrived at the bus station the informed us that there wasn't enough people for the eight thirty so the bus was now leaving at 9am. At around 9:05 we boarded the bus thinking, "great here we go", only to be left sitting on a hot, non- air conditioned bus (in muggy Guatemala) for another 60 minutes before departing. When we asked why we were waiting the answer was that there wasn't enough people on the 9:00 bus so it was also canceled so we had to wait to the next scheduled run at 10 o'clock. Fortunately by 10 there were people standing in the aisle so there was no further waiting. These guys had obliviously done their homework on unit costs and economies of scale, its just a shame that they put this over customer satisfaction!

At around the halfway point of the journey the bus stopped to let some passengers off and pick up some new ones. No sooner had we started again then an Evangelist that got on and was standing in about the middle of the bus started to read aloud from the bible then preach his own sermon. After about 15 minutes of this I would have greatful watched the Kevin Costner movie again that I had already seen five times in Spanish on the Mexican first class buses. I sat in my seat trying to sleep but the loud and monotonous moan of the preacher kept me awake. An half an hour later he was still going...he was reading a passage that said goodbye (adios) a lot and each time he uttered the word hope sprang alive in me that the ordeal was over but alas it wasn't. I started thinking of ways to stop him preaching, all involved extreme violence and were a bit too nasty to be practical in the end I decided on purchasing a ball gag in Antigua and if a preacher started on the bus again I'd get my traveling companions to hold him down and I'd put the gag in. It funny how the mind reacts when it is subjected to stressful situations. After an hour of constant preaching he finally stopped - I had to fight the urge to cheer out loud. He then moved down the bus and to my surprise was given donations by many of the passengers on the bus.....it's scary what passes for entertainment in Guatemala, maybe next bus trip I'll get up and tap dance in the aisle.